New comedy festival creates splash, but no word on space for Anglo comics

The comedy festival planned by a group of 50influential Quebec comedianswishing to distance themselves from Juste pour rire/Just For Laughsis already receiving support from variouslevels of government and sponsors.

Eleven comedians were on Radio-Canada's popular talk show Tout le monde en parleSunday,less than a week after the group banded together in response to thesexual assault allegations against Just for Laughs founder GilbertRozon

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Quebec's minister of economy, Dominique Anglade, appeared alongside the group.

Shesaid the provincial government plans to back the new festival, once it comes up with a business plan.

Organizers are moving quickly: theFestival du riredeMontralis already incorporated. Monday, theymetFederal Heritage Minister Mlanie Joly and, Tuesday, they'replanning to meet officials fromthe City of Montreal.

'We have a responsibility to accompany them,' says Anglade

Angladesaid on Tout le monde en parle that she contactedthe group as soon asshe heard about the planbecause she wanted to be proactive.

"We can't see a group of people mobilize and be interested in doing something together and stay passive as a government," Angladesaid.

"We have a responsibility to accompany them."

Martin Petit, the Quebec comic who's been leading the initiative, said the festival is adopting a co-operative model that aims to be more inclusive and welcoming to female comedians, as well as to thenew generation of young comics.

Desjardins Group has also pledged its involvement.

Petit said he felt betrayed when he heardabout the allegations against his old boss, Rozon, to whom he'd spoken on the phone just three weeks prior.

"He always finished his phone conversations by saying, 'Thank you, Martin, for your trust,'" Petit said on the show. Rozonwas a producer on Petit's show on Radio-Canada,Les pcheurs.

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Notary Paul Larocque, former mayor of Bois-des-Filion,is the fledgling festival's interim director general.

Montreal mayor-electValrie Plantewas also on the show and said she's ready to support the Festival du Rirede Montralin the ways the city has done for Just For Laughs, which has mainly been with logistics, such as security.

Meanwhile, Just For Laughs has vowed its show will go on this summer, meaning there would be two comedy festivals in the city, possibly in the same season.

Anglo comic got start at Just for Laughs

The new festival has not indicated whether there would be an English-speaking element, whereas Just for Laughs has both English and French components.

That's what makes it themost important place for Canadian English-speaking comedians to get discovered, said Martha Chaves, who said Just for Laughs iswhere it all started for her in the 1990s.

"JFL, for us, is like the Holy Grail," Chavestold CBC News Monday, adding it's one of the only galas in the country at which English-speaking comedians can showcase their talent to American agents, producers and networks.

Though the festival has shows inboth languages, few of those shows are bilingual, Chaves said, and the anglophone and francophone communities are fairly isolated in their own communities.

"French Canadian comedians are, let's say, a lot more organized than English comics," Chavessaid.

United by the province sharing their language, French-speaking comicsband together, she explained.

"They have a union, they operate differently, they do huge shows that we sometimes don't have the chance to do."

"It's just like the two solitudes of Canada: they are one, we are the other."

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Chavessaidshe's not ready to turn her back on the gala and that if she's asked to perform again, she'll do it.

She said she was heartbroken by the Gilbert controversy and that it tainted the industry, but that she doesn't want the event to crumble because of the actions of one person.

"I feel like I'm part of the family of Just For Laughs," she said.